Travels With Turcu

By Michael R Spender

A Neolithic family migrates from Eastern Anatolia to the south of Egypt during a period when the climate in their homeland is changing from tropical to cool and arid.
Turcu is their eldest son. He has insights into arithmetic and geometry which enable him to design stone circles with accuracy and great symmetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781105599798

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Travels With Turcu

TRAVELS WITH TURCU

A Novelette By

Michael R Spender

Travels With Turcu © 2012

ISBN 978-1-105-59599-8

All rights reserved

INTRODUCTION

Travels with Turcu tells an imagined story of a family migrating from a settlement in eastern Anatolia  to the southern part of Egypt. The story starts in the year 6050BC, the early Neolithic. The Sahara has recovered from a very dry period and is once more a lush savannah. In Anatolia the climate is becoming arid and colder and is no longer the Garden of Eden it once was. The ancient temples at Gobekli Tepe have for the most part been buried and the large settlement of Homo Sapiens (humans) living nearby are beginning to feel the effects of the climate change. The animals they once celebrated in their temples have migrated because of a lack of prey and the harvests of their domesticated wheat are diminishing year by year. These people are observant, skillful, and creative. They are excellent problem solvers and although there is no written language, each generation living in this settled farming community remembers, and has built on, the accomplishments of those who preceded them.  

Mutlin, his wife Kira decide to leave before the situation becomes too difficult for them to raise their three children. Mutlin has an ambition to build a temple that would be simpler than those he's used to and hopes to find a location where he can do this and settle with his family. He's heard in the legends of his clan that their ancestors originated far to the south along the great river and he determines that he will return to his ancestral homeland. On their journey they encounter other 'humans' and some Neanderthal (cave dweller) communities. They learn from both humans and cave dwellers and also teach ideas and techniques to both groups. They are forced to solve several problems during their journey in order to achieve their ultimate goal.

Turcu is their eldest child. He's eleven when the journey begins. A boy with great arithmetical and geometrical  insight, he is instrumental in finding a method by which stone circles can be constructed so that the perimeter is a whole number of equal segments. This allows the number, location and alignment of stones on the circle to be predetermined, designed in at the planning stages of construction.(*) His discoveries form the basis of stone circle construction throughout the settled world of Homo Sapiens, starting with the oldest at Nabta Playa in Egypt and continuing with another larger and more complex temple in Morocco.

(*) For a more detailed explanation of this methodology, go to:

www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/michaelspender.htm

1. LEAVING HOME

Today was Turcu's eleventh Life Day. Along with all the other children born between the third and fourth new moons, he would enjoy his celebration. Today there would be no chores, only games and when the sun went to rest, they would eat bread made with especially fine ground wheat toasted by the fire and spread thick with honey. Such a treat, one for which he'd waited patiently through twelve new moons. This was his last Life Day as a child. After the evening meal and the honey treats, he would be hoisted onto his father's shoulders and together with the other children entering adulthood, paraded for all the villagers to see. The priests would ask the Gods of the forest for their health as humans, their prowess as hunters and their success as fathers and mothers. It would be a great day, one he wanted to remember, for tomorrow he would begin to learn about the responsibilities of manhood.

Half the villagers, mostly women, were preparing the fields in readiness for planting, the rest mostly men, were working out near the temples. Turcu's father was in this group. They carried stones from the old quarry in large baskets hung from their shoulders and emptied them according to instructions from the priests. Like ants demolishing a moth, an endless circle of men trudged to the temple, tipped their baskets, returned to the quarry to refill then shuffled back to the temple. So far nineteen temples had been buried. The work had been the only task outside the settlement for fifty generations of villagers. It was strange because for a hundred generations before, building the temples had been the most important work. Turcu had been inside this last temple and seen the beautiful pillars with their carvings of the forest animals and he had asked his father why they were being buried. Mutlin, his father had replied,

Just as our ancestors are buried when they die, so too must the gods be buried and it does appear that the gods are dead. I've lived here for over twenty harvests Turcu and I've never seen a lion. Your grandfather never saw one either. The countryside is different now, the trees don't grow as tall, there aren't as many bushes, it's cooler and drier than before and the deer are not as plentiful. So I think the gods are gone to where they can find food. Our crops don't grow as quickly as they used to so we might have to leave as well. Turcu could see that his father was sad talking about these things, he didn't quite understand what he'd been told because to him the plain and their village were exactly as they always had been his entire life.

When his father came home, that afternoon they all sat together for the evening meal. Turcu's mother and younger sister had prepared a feast, for in addition to the usual broth there was roast venison and smoked fish and fresh